stories you can head over to our website. we'll leave you with images of the vatican where pope francis is holding mass on christmas eve. we'll see you back here at 6:00. >> back in 2002, when the u.s. opened an detention center at the guantanamo bay naval base, did the people who did it think we would still be arguing about the place in 2014? that there would still be a detainee population there? it's inside story. >> hello, i'm ray suarez. there are only about 140 men

held at the detention camp at guantanamo bay navy base, but that does not stop it from being the most expensive prison in the world. even with the slow attrition in population, there are plans on the drawing board for spending $69 million for a new high security lock up on the eastern tip of cuba. in the recently passed 1 trillion-dollar spending plan for 2015, congress was shore to include a prohibition of transferring detainees to the u.s. plai mainland. there are occasional trials. occasional transfers and never ending arguments over the law, security, human rights, force feeding, and the future. in early disease six prisoners werdecember six prisoners were taken to uruguay. and they will all begin new

lives at refugees. >> he's hopeful now that he's out and free with proper medical care here in uruguay he can get better and rebuild his life. >> reporter: these six were never charged, and cleared to leave the prison back in 2009. but not until uruguay came forward to take them did they leave prison. the invitation was a personal one from the uruguay president, who has been an outspoken critic of guantanamo. >> that is not a prison, it's a kidnapping den. a prison needs law, a prosecutor, a judge, whoever that might be, a minimum reference to law. that place has none of that. >> the president opened in 2002 was established to hold and interrogate what the bush administration called extraordinarily dangerous prisoners and combatants, the worse of the worse. it has been a source of ongoing friction with president barack obama and opponents in congress.

president obama signed an order to close the place right after he took office. but the order was blocked by congress. shuttering guantanamo has been a political football ever since. the fight raged once again in may. in september the house voted to condemn the president for failing to give congress the required 30-day notice before the release. the administration deprived congress of the opportunity to consider the initial security risk or the repercussions of negotiating with terrorists. and the move reinforced the view many republicans state that the president has behave lawlessly when it comes to guantanamo. even as jihadists are beheading americans, the white house is so

eagle for bring these terrorists from guantanamo bay to the u.s. >> the number of transfer transfers in 2014 is more than 20, and officials say they expect more. the administration has cited the security risks of holding prisoners and the costs of maintaining the prison as reasons for closure. according to the human rights group reprieve the united states has acknowledged holding 779 people at the camp to date, most were never charged with a crime. today that population stands at about 130 with more half cleared for release. detainees have complained of accuse and sub-par living conditions. amnesty international has said that the united states detention facilities at guantanamo bay, cuba, have become emblematic of the gross human rights abuses perper traited by the u.s. government in the name of fighting terrorism.

the senate report on torture, five await trial and are considered to be housed in any country. while the president continues to move detainees and try to close guantanamo, no prisoners can be moved to the u.s. congress reemphasized that reality. the new spending bill passed at the en end of the month prohibits any transfers to u.s. prisons. >> as we mention the president ran for the white house promising to close guantanamo bay, and then it turned out to be harder than he ever imagined. but with the slow attrition, transfers, freeings, even nine deaths in captivity are we watching a stealth closure? the future of the guantanamo

this time on the program. we begin with the lead military lawyer at south com u.s. southern command when the camp was established. he also worked as a military lawyer of another detention center. there has been fighting all along with kind of trials, the rules of evidence involved, what to consider these men, but at some point did it start to become clear that some of them might have been real bad guys, and others were just guys who got put on military transports and sent to cuba and weren't really big-time operatives? >> yes, it was fairly early on. i would say within the first three to four months some talking essentially by april o of 2002 where our interrogators at guantanamo, the military interrogators made initial determinations that some of

these folks really were not who they--who we thought they were. and of course those decisions to send them to guantanamo or not, they were being screened on the battlefield in afghanistan by military and other u.s. government agency agents on the battlefield. >> but once that happens did you enter some sort of circular almos status where you didn't know why they were keeping you, but they wouldn't let you leave? >> from the standpoint of the person being detained--look, there were some folks who were clearly should not have been there, and i guess for lack of a better term, it was just a mistake, and they should never have been put on the transport in the first place and sent there. those folks we sent back as quickly as we could, and i say

we. the u.s. government in general. there were other folks who perhaps they were not as--they did not have the kind of intelligence that we thought they had. and perhaps also they were not--they did not pose the risk to u.s. soldiers on the battlefield still, and we were in a position to want to send those back. however, there is the issue of rendition, which essentially means that the united states government has prohibited from accepting back to the home nation to repatriate somebody if there is reason to believe--if there was good reason to believe that there may be torture or worse if we sent them back to their home nation. >> at the time when this was all fresh and new as rules were coming up regarding these guys, as rules were being former nateed for holding these guys. did you imagine in the final days of 2014 we would still be

talking about an up and running prison with an ongoing inmate population? >> you know, obviously it's very difficult thinking back on it 13 years ago, but look, the idea that we would still have people in custody, whether it was at guantanamo or somewhere else, that was fairly clear and fairly obvious, that there would an group of folks 13 years later who would still be in our custody because in terms of the normal process and paradigm of you get people, you arrest them, you prosecute them, and if they're acquitted, then you release them. in this particular case the administration at that time basically made it clear that some of these folks, even if they are prosecuted and acquitted, they would not be released, and they would b continue to be held because they

were too dangerous, and we were told that there was an ongoing war against terrorism and that these were combatants in that conflict, and under international law so long as there is an armed conflict then you are authorized to continue to detain combatants in that conflict. >> thank you for joining us on inside story. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> we'll be back with more after a short break. when we return a panel of experts who worked closely with the military justice system and have come to very different conclusion abouts what to do now with the prison at guantanamo. stay with us. >> we were talking to a young lady saying she just wanted her voice to get out there. >> by the thousands, they're sending their government a message. >> ahead of 'em is a humanitarian crisis where tens of thousands of people are

without food, water, shelter. >> a special one hour look at global attacks on free press. monday 9:00 eastern. on al jazeera america.

>> you're watching inside story on al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. the legal, moral, political dimensions of the continued operation of the detention camp for terrorist suspects at guantanamo bay naval base. just recently six prisoners were transferred to uruguay on south america's east coast. joining us now, the representative of detainees early in the war. the former prosecutor in the department of justice's counter terrorism section, she's currently counsel, and

representative of 18 guantanamo detainees. courtney, do the international convention differ when you're talking of a guerrilla army of a no longer sovereign government. >> they're describing them as unprivilege enemy of we ledge republicans. that's the what is used now. >> would that extend to a

soldier fighting for the government. >> not just a nation-state but other legal aspects such as wearing uniform, openly carrying your arm, not attacking civilians, not attacking red cross workers, not attacking ngos, all of which not particularly detainees at guantanamo bay, but all of which in a al-qaida engaged in early on. and off springs from al-qaeda are involved in today. >> do you sympathize and protect the government, figure out who was an enemy, who was not, and keep people off the battlefield who may take up arms against the

united states. >> i do sympathize with that and we had procedures to do that. the military has regulations if you capture someone on the battlefield, and you have any question whether they were properly captured, the military was going to do t and the white house said we want no such hearings. every area, most were simply shipped off to guantanamo. we learned early on a lot of them were simply there by mistake. >> was the article by process considered a luxury at a time when the ruins in lower manhattan were still smoking? they were still excavating bodies from the world trade center. >> every war is a crisis. we establish rules so they'll be

there in times of crisis. if you can throw them away whenever you're hurt, whenever you want to be vegetabl vengeful, we become a lawless state within guantanamo. >> once people were in guantanamo and were there for a while, did they represent more of a challenge the longer they were there? >> yes, they did. president bush managed to transfer detai detainees from guantanamo. president obama has transferred 90, you has more, but he has to find other countries to accept them. that's not an easy thing. in addition, congress has prohibited bringing detainees to the united states. as long as he can't send them to the united states, and long as

he can't send them anywhere else, and as long as there are detainees such as the military commission detainees he doesn't want to transfer, he keeps them. >> lofa lot of the countries of the detainees don't want them. >> i don't know, but they have not been sent home to the native countries, but it's the united states who don't want to return them because of fear of torture. >> i think recidivism is one fear, but the fear he was just discussing is our obligations under the conventions against torture that the state department special envoy is working hard to relocate the detainees cleared for transfer have to deal with, which is we are not by law allowed to

transfer detainees to countries where we fear that their safety could be compromised by their own government or by actors in that country, and that's prevented the transfer of some number of detainees. then there is the issue of a large number of yemeni detainees that have not been transferred as well. >> if i spent eight years in guantanamo, i could imagine my whole government not thinking very much of me once i get home. i'm either a hero or a guy with a target on my back. >> that might be so, but it does not compromise a person's right to go home. if did he nothing he should go home, and if he has been clear--let me say, while it's a red herring to say that we fear torture and can't send them home, the president has complete authority to send them to third countries. there are people who was a penalty residen resident of

britain. what is the reason for not sending him back to britain? the reason why they're still there is because there is demagoguery from republicans a , if it went for the demagoguery, most of these people could be sent home, even to yemen. >> you're representing a lot of these people. it must be--i can't imagine the psychological pressure of having been cleared, and still being there year after year. >> i represent 17 yemeni detainees, and i've worked on these cases for over a decade. i've gotten a chance to know the detainees as people, which nobody else gets to know them as because the public can't visit them. the politician can't visit them.

the media can't visit them. and get to know them. president obama decided in 2010 simply not to release them now they're three fourths of the cleared detainees. he has begun to release them, but he's still in a box because where is he going to send 55 detainees if he won't send them to yemen, and i doubt he's going to send them to yemen under the current circumstances. >> courtney, just before the break, were there points where we had clear binary choices where we made choices where this made this harder and detractible in the long run? >> i think early on, i think early on there were binary choices made to open the

facility and to apply the geneva convictio convention, not apply the geneva convention, and there are choice thousand whether the president will exercise power to not let people go or be influenced by the politics and pressures of the other side. >> which are real, and we'll talk about that. trying the men in guantanamo in military commissions has gone very slowly. trying them in the united states is politically impossible. letting the ones cleared of wrongdoing going home may be dangerous for the detainees, maybe not. it's not clear what will happen with gizmo. my guests have some ideas. experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first

choice for the news.

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. back in the final years of

barack obama. the population of the prison is greatly diminished, but for many held there the legal process has yet to even begin. still with us tom wilner who represented detainees captured early in the war that began after the september 11th attacks. courtney sullivan, a former trial attorney from the department of justice's counter terrorism section, and david reams, who is currently representing 18 guantanamo detainees. the question on the floor, lady and gentlemen, what do we do now? as they say in government speak, atritting, the number of people are going down, but there is no final determination of what to do with the place. >> it's worse of having nowhere to send them. president obama knows where to accepted them, in the united

states, but congress has denied that option. there are two guantanamo. there is guantanamo the physical detention facility. that's really what president obama wants to close. i wants to move them to a site in the united states, and i know that tom and i disagree with that, but that would be changing the zip code. then there is the idea of guantanamo. and the idea is holding men without charge or trial. president obama should be repudiating that idea, which is much more dangerous than the location of the facility, but he actually embraces it. and if he can't move these men to the united states, he can only keep them at guantanamo. >> courtney sullivan, is it as stark and clear as that for you? >> i think it's a little more nuanced for me. i think that there is a middle way. there are probably--the people people--the president has accepted the wartime construct

that you can detain people who were involved in the war during the time of war. and whether those people become less dangerous and you release some of them is what is happening now. i think the president can override congress, or congress can change its mind to bring them to the united states and try them in federal court. but i think the third category of what do you do with people who are deemed too dangerous to release is the sticky wicket. as long as there continues to be a war on terror and the authorization of military use of military force in place, that wicket won't be resolved. >> because there has been no declaration of war, and less well defined war on terror could go on forever, does that give you the right to hold on to these guys forever? >> i think the supreme court has indicated that it probably doesn't. that we no longer have boots on

the ground in afghanistan. that the authorization of use in military force was directed at al-qaeda and associated forces and people who engage in those particular hostilities. now the hostilities are spreading. we've closed the bagram facility, and we've repatriated those people, so i think the legal construct is waning. >> what do we do now? >> i think david got it right and courtney did. it's contrary to our system and our principles to detain people, to impress people unless you charge them and convict them. that's just not something that we believe in. there are many times we might want to do that. we might see people in the streets of washington who we think might be dangerous. we may see potential drug dealers, but our system says you need to try them and convict them. we have one exception to that, that's when you're in a war with boots on the ground you can hold

somebody out of the combat to prevent them from going back into combat. in one decision it said that you only pick them up and hold them in connection with that hostility. you can't say there is a global war on terrorism, a never declared war, and pick up people and hold them, that's not something that america believes in. we should try those. we have seen the evidence against some of these people. it's really bull. it would never stand up in a court of law. the only reason why they're imprisoned is because they're an up represented minority. that's just a shame. >> thank you all for joining me. that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. thanks for being with us.

the program may be over but the conversation continues. we especially want to hear what you think about the issues raised on today's show. you can log on to our facebook page. you can send us your thoughts on twitter. our handle is aj inside story am. or you can reach me directly or follow me at @ray suareznews. in washington, i'm ray suarez. >> hi everyone, i'm paul beban in new york. "the interview" gets limited release. why sony changed its mind about showing the comedy flick about north korea. wall street rallies to a record close. and why a group of singers might

be filing $1 billion lawsuit against youtube. and picture perfect, "national geographic" contribution. all that coming up after "consider this."